Nonreciprocal interaction and entanglement between two superconducting qubits

  1. Yu-Meng Ren,
  2. Xue-Feng Pan,
  3. Xiao-Yu Yao,
  4. Xiao-Wen Huo,
  5. Jun-Cong Zheng,
  6. Xin-Lei Hei,
  7. Yi-Fan Qiao,
  8. and Peng-Bo Li
Nonreciprocal interaction between two spatially separated subsystems plays a crucial role in signal processing and quantum networks. Here, we propose an efficient scheme to achieve
nonreciprocal interaction and entanglement between two qubits by combining coherent and dissipative couplings in a superconducting platform, where two coherently coupled transmon qubits simultaneously interact with a transmission line waveguide. The coherent interaction between the transmon qubits can be achieved via capacitive coupling or via an intermediary cavity mode, while the dissipative interaction is induced by the transmission line via reservoir engineering. With high tunability of superconducting qubits, their positions along the transmission line can be adjusted to tune the dissipative coupling, enabling to tailor reciprocal and nonreciprocal interactions between the qubits. A fully nonreciprocal interaction can be achieved when the separation between the two qubits is (4n+3)λ0/4, where n is an integer and λ0 is the photon wavelength. This nonreciprocal interaction enables the generation of nonreciprocal entanglement between the two transmon qubits. Furthermore, applying a drive field to one of the qubit can stabilize the system into a nonreciprocal steady-state entangled state. Remarkably, the nonreciprocal interaction in this work does not rely on the presence of nonlinearity or complex configurations, which has more potential applications in designing nonreciprocal quantum devices, processing quantum information, and building quantum networks.

Coupling a single NV center with a superconducting qubit via the electro-optic effect

  1. Chang-Hao Li,
  2. and Peng-Bo Li
We propose an efficient scheme for transferring quantum states and generating entangled states between two qubits of different nature. The hybrid system consists a single nitrogen vacancy
(NV) center and a superconducting (SC) qubit, which couple to an optical cavity and a microwave resonator, respectively. Meanwhile, the optical cavity and the microwave resonator are coupled via the electro-optic effect. By adjusting the relative parameters, we can achieve high fidelity quantum state transfer as well as highly entangled states between the NV center and the SC qubit. This protocol is within the reach of currently available techniques, and may provide interesting applications in quantum communication and computation with single NV centers and SC qubits.

Quantum microwave-optical interface with nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

  1. Bo Li,
  2. Peng-Bo Li,
  3. Yuan Zhou,
  4. Sheng-Li Ma,
  5. and Fu-Li Li
We propose an efficient scheme for a coherent quantum interface between microwave and optical photons using nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. In this setup, an NV center ensemble
is simultaneously coupled to an optical and a microwave cavity. We show that, by using the collective spin excitation modes as an intermediary, quantum states can be transferred between the microwave cavity and the optical cavity through either a double-swap scheme or a dark-state protocol. This hybrid quantum interface may provide interesting applications in single microwave photon detections or quantum information processing.

Engineering two-mode entangled states between two superconducting resonators by dissipation

  1. Peng-Bo Li,
  2. Shao-Yan Gao,
  3. and Fu-Li Li
We present an experimental feasible scheme to synthesize two-mode continuous-variable entangled states of two superconducting resonators that are interconnected by two gap-tunable superconducting
qubits. We show that, with each artificial atom suitably driven by a bichromatic microwave field to induce sidebands in the qubit-resonator coupling, the stationary state of the photon fields in the two resonators can be cooled and steered into a two-mode squeezed vacuum state via a dissipative quantum dynamical process, while the superconducting qubits remain in their ground states. In this scheme the qubit decay plays a positive role and can help drive the system to the target state, which thus converts a detrimental source of noise into a resource.